Earlier in the month, Capcom revealed that Ultra Street Fighter IV will contain a new feature called “Edition Select,” which will allow you to select previous versions of characters from the Street Fighter IV games. This feature, the publisher later said, would not be supported during online multiplayer matches.

Since then, Capcom have received requests from a number of players asking for online multiplayer support to be added to the Edition Select feature, and Capcom’s Peter Rosas (AKA “Combofiend”) has replied to the requests on the Capcom forums.

“Hey all, the initial reason that this mode wasn’t made online available was that we wanted the main emphasis to be placed on the Ultra versions of the characters. By introducing the older unbalanced characters (Vanilla Akuma/Sagat, Super Abel/Honda, AE Yun/Yang) we’d only undermine the work that’s been put in over the last year to give fans the most balanced SFIV yet. This mode is just supposed to be a fun aside that you can play your friends with as you try to figure which character is the strongest (hence local only).

“That’s not to say we haven’t noticed the requests to have this go online. Although there are no plans of it now, if anything comes to fruition, I’ll keep you all updated.”

Ultra Street Fighter IV will be available in June for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A PC release will follow in August. Decapre, the last of the game’s five new characters, was officially revealed last night.

I’ve been reading this site for years and I STILL can’t get used to the fact that you treat company names as plural nouns.

Pyrofrost

Good answer if you ask me. I give this guy a thumbs up.

If it is made possible in the future, it should be kept to strictly unranked matches.

Freakmasta

Just keep it player matches and everybody will have fun.

Pyrofrost

Exactly!

As soon as I read the title, I was thinking to myself that there is no way Capcom could actually be considering giving in on this, because of a few whiny gamers.

I mean, I can understand fan outcries about legit things; but, for things like this, the people crying out need to understand that the product isn’t made for themselves individually.

Guest

You’re a fool.

Pyrofrost

I’m flattered by the compliment.

http://www.sunsetreflector.blogspot.com/ MyDearGirls

More people like you with no skill obviously whine for “balance” and that doesn’t make that right. Capcom would very likely go the right way if people make enough requests, so flops like you will simply be left in the dust.

Pyrofrost

Thank you for the constructive input, it’s appreciated.

하세요

At least have an option even for that, such as “Only Ultra” or “Any” because some like to practice with Player Matches and…it’s hard to learn the game with some of the previous broken characters.

Sure there’s training mode and computers but playing computers and playing real people are two different ballparks.

( `Д´)ﾉ)`ν゜)

I was wondering if they reiterated what they said a while ago but then I noticed that that forum post in question is two weeks old.

Atwa

I hope it won’t be online, stay with your fucking balance.

dj_jm09

I don’t see why they wouldn’t add this to strictly player lobbies only. They can have Ranked matches be only Ultra. It doesn’t harm anybody if they have Edition Select in player lobbies. Hell I mean Hyper Street Fighter 2 was even played in Major Tournaments and nobody complained about that and that game actually had broken characters and literal 10-0 matchups.

Atwa

Player matches are supposed to be for practicing, not fucking around. You don’t practice playing against broken iterations of characters. I rather they wouldn’t have included it at all. If they have to online, add a joke lobby option.

Haganeren

B-But… I though player matches was to having fun ? What a shame…

Atwa

They have always mainly been to practice against certain matchups. I go there and play 30-50 games against the same character to learn the matchup.

pressstart

Nice, don’t allow those casuals who play just for fun against randoms or long distance friends online.

Atwa

You can’t play for fun with the new balance? Why does playing the old unbalanced characters have to be your way of having fun?

dj_jm09

The same exact reason that Hyper Street Fighter 2 was fun. It just fun to use your favorite versions of characters against other versions. It creates alot of what if scenarios when people use the knowledge that we have now of older versions of characters. Why are you so against version select?

Atwa

Because version select is just a fun casual mode to laugh at. Its not serious, and if you put it online you have to limit it. If you limit it to silly mode that is fine, but if you put it in regular matchmaking the game is dead competitively online. People never played version select of Hyper Street Fighter 2 in tournaments.

dj_jm09

Exactly you even said it yourself! “version select is just a fun casual mode to laugh at”. So why wouldnt they put it online so people can have fun? This is a video game so that is the main purpose right??? Also you are acting like people could not potentially create Ultra only or Version Select lobbies in player matches. People very much played version select in Hyper Street Fighter 2 in tournaments. It was even in EVO 2k6 so it is now clear that you don’t really know what you are talking about.

Longshadow

Competitive spirit is the lifeblood of fighting games. Long-time fans don’t play only to have fun, but also to improve. If Capcom requires the fans to re-learn matchups against broken characters (e.g., vanilla Sagat, AE Yun), then improving becomes a lost cause.

Keeping the game competitive is the whole point of balance patches, so Mr. Rosas is correct in saying that enabling version select online undermines the effort put into USF4.

dj_jm09

What do you mean by relearn? You say that like the character’s movelists are really that different. Only very few characters actually have more combo/links in the older versions. Its mostly just damage outputs. Also Capcom HAS to tailor to the casual gamers that just want to have fun with it. Not everybody is an EVO attendee like I am. (Even though I will probably never get top 16). Having this in player lobbies doesnt undermine the effort because we still have Ranked Matches. They could still also make leave it up to the lobby creator on whether its Version Select or Ultra.

pressstart

I never said I couldn’t, I’m just capable of seeing another side to it. You know, empathy.

Haganeren

I’m happy for you…
But i like playing video game for having fun, not for competition.

Also, in certain case, i don’t play some of my favorite fighting game because it would train me and i would be too strong for the friend i play with. (They don’t necessary have time to play too)

I like having intense match with the people i know. I don’t really care if I loose.

I have another friend which act like you… Ok, he is on tournament at all but he is not the one I am the most happy to battle against as a result.

So yeah, Edition Select is fun so… Why not ?

dj_jm09

Tell that to all of the tournament players then lol. Player matches are supposed to be for having fun. Ranked matches are the ones that are supposed to be taken seriously. Well then if they aren’t supposed to be used for “fucking around” then how does a player that wants to “fuck around” do that in SF with no local people to play against? Arcade mode lol?

Gemlit

For me, it should be up to each individual person. If they want to practice, eff around, or compete, it’s up to them. I would really like it if I saw people competing using different versions of characters competing for stuff over the internet. The best of the best fighting it out using characters that are overpowered so unlike Rare Akuma. That’s what makes things interesting and so fun! At least to me.

dj_jm09

Yes I feel the same way! Edition select will be fun for me and many others! I dont really see the point in having a mode like this for just offline play in 2014.

Gemlit

Ultra will be released around EVO which is at the end of June. Thus, online tourneys using Edition Select is too soon.

Also, dj, what Longshadow means that each version of every single character has many quirks based on normal lag time, online lag time, priority moves and other implementation. So, because it’s been a long time since vanilla SF came out, many others have most likely forgotten those quirks.

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